New Olympic police powers threaten liberty

Issue 

BY KIM BULLIMORE

SYDNEY — New laws introduced by the NSW Labor government, with the support of the Coalition, to ensure the security of the Olympic Games are draconian and present a threat to civil liberties, participants in a June 13 seminar, organised by Sydney University's Institute of Criminology, were told.

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre's Amanda Cornwall told the 50 participants in the seminar, "Protest, Policing and the Olympics", that powers given to "authorised officers" under new public order laws covering Olympic venues and the Sydney Harbour foreshore are more wide-ranging than those given to police under the Summary Offences Act.

Under the new laws, "authorised officers" do not have to identify themselves unless requested to, nor give any reason for moving people on. They can search bags and property, require a person to give their name and address, take photographs of people and issue on-the-spot fines of up to $200.

Cornwall said there was strong evidence that the new laws were specifically designed to curtail protest at the Olympics, as it would be an offence "to participate in unauthorised meeting, procession, performance or sporting event".

According to the NSW Council for Civil Liberties' Tim Anderson, "The rise in police powers is a response to a police crisis of legitimacy" resulting from the 1997 Wood royal commission into police corruption, as well as "the ongoing media law and order vortex which draws on the public insecurity and the growing privatisation of public and quasi-public space".

If the aim of rising police powers was to deter Olympics protest, it hasn't worked, according to the Metropolitan Land Council's Lyall Munro, who said, "Protest has been an integral part of black resistance". The MLC is planning a comprehensive program of activities during the Olympics, he said, including establishing a cultural site and an Aboriginal Tent Embassy, and several peaceful protests.

Munro said they could not guarantee protesters' safety "because of the presence of the new security forces". A representative of the NSW police had admitted to Aboriginal activists that police officers did not have sufficient training to properly handle protests and that if there was an adverse reaction it was more likely to come from the police than protesters.

Inspector Dave Darcy, representing the police, was scheduled to speak but pulled out at the last minute, telling seminar convenor Chris Cunneen "it was not appropriate to be publicly debating public order or other Olympic security related issues prior to the games".

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